The
40-story apartment building of High-Rise
is an allegorical hell of strict social and economic castes. The movie ends with
a section of a speech about free-wheeling capitalism by Margaret Thatcher, in
case anyone in the audience somehow hasn't picked up on the point by then. At
least the overtness of the closing moment lets us know that the movie knows what
it's trying to do. In a way, it's almost impressive—how the movie swings
around its allegory like one of those big cartoon mallets yet fails to hit any
of its barn-wall-sized targets. If it were blindfolded, we could understand,
but, no, the movie is clear-eyed. It's simply uncoordinated.

The
highlight of the movie is its setting. It's a towering, concrete edifice that
rises straight toward the sky before the upper floors become staggered like
bleacher seats. Around it are three other such buildings under
construction—the complex forming the fingers of a hand in which the palm is a
large, confounding parking lot.

Director
Ben Wheatley is clearly enamored with the design. Even though the majority of
the movie takes place inside the building, he still ensures that there are an
array of establishing shots of the structure at different times of day, with
assorted camera movements, and from a variety of angles—looking straight down
from the sky or up from the parking lot or wide shots of its corners.

The
elements of the building that are more important for the actual story and its
thematic implications are less clear. The story follows Laing (Tom Hiddleston),
a new resident in the building. He's a doctor of the brain, and given his
profession and social status, he is on the 25th floor of the building—about
halfway up between the lower classes and the penthouse, if one excludes the
lobby and the floors housing amenities like a gym and squash courts. The
building has everything anyone would need, including a market, and that's good,
because Laing and a few other lower-echelon residents have a difficult time
finding their cars in the lot. The richer folks are relentless in their pursuit
of the closest spots.

We meet
other folks as the insulated world of the building is vaguely established.
Laing's upstairs neighbor is Charlotte (Sienna Miller), a consummate
party-thrower. On a lower floor is an unhappily married couple: Wilder (Luke
Evans) is a struggling documentary filmmaker who works in television to pay the
bills, and Helen (Elisabeth Moss) is raising two kids while she's pregnant with
a third. In the penthouse is the building's architect Royal (Jeremy Irons),
whose wife (Keeley Hawes) dawdles around the vast garden terrace dressed like
Little Bo Peep. Royal is convinced his structure is a signpost for the future.

Other
faces appear to slightly flesh out the social dynamics of the place. People are
loyal to their floors. Lower-floor tenants visiting upper floors is frowned
upon. The parties, which always seem to be going somewhere, grow more
extravagant as one rises. Everyone pays the same for utilities—a point of
contention for every class, since the electricity keeps failing. As for Laing,
his sister has died recently, making him the last of his family. He's also more
comfortable with the people beneath him.

Inevitably,
things go wrong. There's a rebellion at the pool. The lower floors become
resentful while the residents above start to restrict the
"necessities," such as champagne and cake. The power fails completely,
and the whole system begins to rot from within—just like the perishables in
the building's market.

Yes,
it's all that obvious, but even so, it still feels as if there are vital pieces
missing from Amy Jump's screenplay (adapted from J.G. Ballard's novel). There's
a negligible sense of momentum or progression through the movie. Almost
immediately after the introductory beats have concluded (It takes a while for
the screenplay to establish as little as it does), chaos erupts. The lower
floors turn into destitute areas of violent crime, and the upper floors become
an unceasing bacchanal (There are suggestions of an ancillary group that simply
wants to stay out of it and survive, but like everything else here, that
possible optimism is underdeveloped).

Wheatley
is mostly concerned with the movie's aesthetics, which are, at times, striking—especially
the movie's 1970s pastiche—and, at others, irritating—the stylistic
flourishes that exist for their own sake (a dreamed dance with flight
attendants, for example) and the transparent attempts to shock (most obviously,
a face-peeling "gag" at Laing's work that happens twice). The problem
is the inattention to building this world beyond its appearance. High-Rise is so convinced of the merits of its thesis that the movie
forgets to argue it.